BRIMLEY — The ball kept going back and forth over the net. The Brimley bench jumped up after every potential kill. DeTour kept digging and sending it over. Back and forth until…

A desperate DeTour bump went high over the net, hit the duct work on top of the gym and dropped down on the DeTour side. The Bays won Game 2 31-29 and swept the Raiders 25-22, 31-29, 25-20 in a battle of two Eastern U.P. Conference favorites.

DeTour's Mary Firack gave the Raiders a 25-24 lead to start the endgame madness. A service error tied, then Taylor Mills set down a kill to put the Bays at game point. A Bays error tied the game, a Mills kill after a long rally gave the Bays a lead, two kill errors gave the Raiders a 28-27 lead, an Anna Carrick kill tied it again, Lindsay Grzesiek gave the Raiders the lead, then Mills tied it again, Tabitha Graham had a block kill, and then the ball hit the duct.

Whew.

"It looked like we wanted it more? Yeah," said Mills, who had six kills and 11 digs while playing with a sore throat. "It's best not to get too frustrated and stay even. I thought we were having fun tonight."

The Bays needed Mills to step up big during that stretch with teammate Tabitha Graham and DeTour's Nicole Bouwma, two of the best hitters in the league, each on the back line.

"When Nicole was on the back line, that's when we started to go," Bays coach Lisa Corbiere said. "What we've been working on that, to hit it and mean it, and I thought Taylor did a great job of that."

The Bays had to come back in each of the first two games, coming back 16-8 in Game 1 with a 13-1 run to take the lead and win. In Game 2 they trailed 20-16 before fighting off three game points. In Game 3, they shot out to a 16-8 lead and led 23-15 before a long DeTour rally closed the game to 23-20.

"I've never seen my team persevere like that," Corbiere said. "They did not let up one bit."

For the Bays, Graham had 12 kills, seven digs and a pair of blocks, Carrick had 10 kills, 12 assists and three blocks, Alyssa Hyvarinen had four kills and five digs, Clarissa Kelly had seven digs and seven assists, and Kourtney St. Peter had 13 assists.

For the Raiders, Bouwma had 14 kills, 14 digs and three blocks, Grzesiek had five kills, three aces and a block, and Mary Firack had five kills.